Posts Tagged ‘Strategic Planning’

There are a few very simple steps to follow to schedule your time and have a great day. Do them daily, and you’ll have a great week. That’s not what we’ll cover here.

We want to know how to maximize the first hour of the day!(or so) so we get a great start to the day and keep it going. Here goes:

Alarm goes off. No snooze button. Before your feet hit the floor say this verbatim, “This is going to be a great day for me.” That’s it. That’s all you have to do to set your mind and start the engine correctly. But there’s more. 14 seconds

Wash your face or whatever you do for the morning wake up ritual. Shake out the cobwebs of the night and get things going. 35 seconds

No email, no social media. This is ‘me time’ and not they time. Read your goals. Surely you set goals and are working on them. Do email at the office. 2 minutes

Write 10 things you want to accomplish in the next 30 days. Simple goals. But important. Do this every day. 4 minutes

Meditate, pray. Connect with a higher power. It’s the only way. Clear your mind. Be with yourself. De-clutter. 10 minutes.

Eat a small piece of fruit. Apple, banana whatever. On the way to workout.

Exercise routine. Whatever it is. 1 hour minimum.

Get your morning nutrition. 30 minutes

Read something worthwhile with your breakfast: spiritual, news, schedule for the day, but still not emails. Get on those when you begin your day in the office.

Get to your day. Tackle the one thing that you really don’t want to do. It’s called “Eat the Big Green Frog.”

We have time for all of these actions. Add up the times. This ain’t difficult.

Do you need it for internal communications as well as your Marketing programs?

Then start with the answer to: SO WHAT?

Do you have a major reason to “Get to Yes” with a client or prospect? Something like make the sale, or authorize an agreement?

What would it mean to you to have the “ok” from an investor or banker to fund your project? Could it put you on the road to success?

How would it make you feel if you could gather 100% support for your plan from your team?

The answer to these and other questions is apparent when we begin our communication by addressing the audience’s question…”SO WHAT”. What is in it for them? This is where we appeal to their emotions vs. trying to convince them with logic, facts or charts.

From the book, “So What?” by Mark Magnacca we are reminded that “the people you are trying to communicate with, sell to, or reach don’t really care about you, or what you have to offer, until they know how what you have can benefit them.” “If you help enough people get what they want, by showing or explaining how what you have can benefit them, you can have anything you want.”

Most of us believe that “I” have to communicate “my” message because it is “important.” It’s all about us. When, in fact, it’s all about them.

We are told it’s all about what we say, how we look, the quality of our collateral materials, how smart we are……

So, we tell people about “my product, my service, my idea…..” And that worked well for a long time. Now, we can ask Mr. Google anything we want to know about your product, who else sells it, where I can get it on-line, and more. We have to give people the SO WHAT answer first.

Learn to identify the emotion that will move your audience. We have to get away from what we think our words, facts, logic and pictures should say or show someone.

We have to ask ourselves “what is the purpose of my presentation or message?”

“Why should they care?”

“What benefits will they receive?”

We may have to grind down and down and down to be sure we are answering the WHY at the most basic and desired level of our audience.

Focus on what your audience needs to hear vs. what you want to say. “People don’t go to the hardware store to buy a quarter-inch drill. They go because they want to make quarter-inch holes.” (Harvard professor, Ted Levitt) Deliver the end result.

The ability to communicate what we need and want is critical to our business survival …and survival in our other forms of existence. Understanding the So What factor for all of our messages Gets Us to Yes. Then we complete the cycle of What We Want to What We Get.

Decoding The Path to Success is about our personal quest to find the success we seek. There is a way. It is comprised of soft skills that equate to leadership. If I stand and deliver on those components it could be pretty sleepy. But…the message is delivered in the context of our Heroes & Role Models. They show us the Path.

The Path to Success always goes through more revenue, profitability, having a meaningful purpose for your business, managing change, motivating employees, taking action, developing and keeping employee attitudes positive and productive, and more.

As young boys in west Texas we had athletes for Heroes. Football and baseball players were mine. I knew all about them. Read about their games. I knew their statistics.

I tried to be like them on the playing fields. If they did things a certain way, then I tried the same thing. I watched them on TV…..all 3 channels!!! If I could just be like them, I thought, then I would be successful. It was simple.

And then,….Time happened. I wasn’t the athlete my heroes had been. I moved on.

Like all of us I piled up life’s experiences, acquaintances, and events. People moved in and out of my life. And…They left their impressions.

In one way or another I refer to those lessons today. Each of us has those experiences. Use them. Rely on them. Learn from your earliest Role Models. They help us on the Path to Success.

Somewhere along the line of development we discover who we really are, and then we make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life and what you become yourself.

Be generous! Give to those whom you love; give to those who love you; give to the fortunate; give to the unfortunate; yes—give especially to those to whom you don’t want to give.

Your most precious, valued possessions and your greatest powers are invisible and intangible. No one can take them. You, and you alone, can give them. You will receive abundance for your giving. The more you give—the more you will have!

Give a smile to everyone you meet (smile with your eyes)—and you’ll smile and receive smiles. Give a kind word (with a kindly thought behind the word)—you will be kind and receive kind words.

Give honor, credit and applause (the victor’s wreath)—you will be honorable and receive credit and applause.

Give time for a worthy cause (with eagerness)—you will be worthy and richly rewarded.

Give hope (the magic ingredient for success)—you will have hope and be made hopeful.

Give happiness (a most treasured state of mind)—you will be happy and be made happy.

Give encouragement (the incentive to action)—you will have courage and be encouraged.

Give cheer (the verbal sunshine)—you’ll be cheerful and cheered.

Give a pleasant response (the neutralizer of irritants)—you will be pleasant and receive pleasant responses.

Give good thoughts (nature’s character builder)—you will be good and the world will have good thoughts for you.

-W. Clement Stone

If your parents are still alive, give them the gift of your time. Lots of it. You’ll never regret whatever you think you are sacrificing in its place. Regrets after they are gone will not soothe the loss.

From an early time in our lives most of us have Heroes, Role Models. They come to us from a variety of sources and for a variety of reasons. We consciously select some role models. Some are more accidental. Authors, artists, military heroes, family members, athletes, political figures, all are among the sources from which we commonly select when we are making a conscious choice.

Some heroes may be more accidental. They have actually left a mark in our lives, but they remain in our subconscious. We are less aware of their lesson…..….Until we need them.

Heroes are pivotal people and events that have helped shape our lives. We lean on them for support when we fail or need a boost. We use their example to adjust our flagging attitude.

As young boys in west Texas we had athletes for heroes. Football and baseball players were mine. I knew all about them, watched them on TV (we had 3 channels back then), read about their games, knew their stats. I tried to be like them on my playing fields.

If they did things a certain way, then I tried the same thing. If I could just be like them, I thought, then I would be successful. It was simple.

And….Time happened. I wasn’t the athlete my heroes had been. I moved on.

Like all of us I piled up life’s experiences, acquaintances, and events. People moved in and out of my life. And…….They left impressions.

Some of those marks I didn’t see for quite a few years. Maybe I just didn’t see the importance of them being there. I didn’t consciously see their message….. Until I needed them!

When did I need them?….. At times when my attitude was really bad. At times when I had failed. At times when I needed a boost. Interestingly… my wife tells me that when we ‘need’ a cat one always shows up. I guess heroes and guides are like that.

!!!But my experiences and my research show that they are not accidental. They have been there. Waiting for us to see them. Waiting for us to find them again.

All of us will have falls and failures in our lives. We will make huge mistakes… and slip a bit. Our attitudes and outlooks on life will flag from time to time. All of these, and more, are why we look to role models and heroes for examples of how to stay the course, how to succeed, and how to keep life in balance.

Maybe we will think of Thomas Edison at times when we want to quit. Maybe we will think of Ghandi or Martin Luther King for inspiration. Maybe we will think of Mother Teresa for steadfast beliefs… or John Wayne for bravado.

Whomever we look to it will be because at that moment we need support and confirmation.

You have heroes and role models in your lives, whether you realize them or not, and whether you have consciously called on them…or not. They are there. I enjoy helping audiences explore the presence of their role models. And look at examples of how they help us.

I encourage you to make a conscious effort to recall your heroes. Then use their examples to guide your attitude at the times when you need them the most.

Why do we want to know about role models? …..we could probably list a lot of reasons, but here are a few that I find are relevant every day:

It is important for you as a leader to know about your Heroes for your personal guidance.

It is important for you to know about Heroes so you can guide your Team and help them identify theirs.

AND…..

It is important for you to get the information today and pass it on. This is information we pass on to our team, customers, suppliers, friends, peers.

It is not ours to keep!……Having the knowledge of anything is important. But passing it along to others is what builds you.

Helps you grow.

It Builds your legacy.

It Solidifies your place as a valuable Resource and a trusted Guide.

When I give talks on Role Models we look at Where to find Heroes, and Why we need them. We acknowledge our Conscious and Subconscious Heroes. There is a formula from Decoding the Path to Success that puts everything into perspective. And we learn about the Legacy and responsibility of being a Hero to another. That’s a huge one. Finally, we explore how Heroes help us perform Self-Evaluations.

Look for those significant people and events in your life. I ‘realized’ two within the past 5 years that had been there since my pre-teen years. I just simply had not consciously acknowledged the lessons from these two people. But I am confident they have been there to guide me.

Most of us have it backwards. We tell ourselves some version of this story: “Once I make enough money or find that perfect mate or land that institutional client, I’ll be happy.” We believe that outer success will naturally lead to personal satisfaction. But the tabloids remind us that this is a myth every time they provide a glimpse of the rich, famous, and miserable.

That’s not to say that material pursuits should be disregarded, but don’t expect a pot of joy at the end of that rainbow. If anything, the inverse is true: happiness leads to material success because it informs your attitude. It even influences your luck.

In his book, The Luck Factor, Dr. Richard Wiseman describes a study in which he asked students to complete a series of personality tests that characterized their worldview as optimistic or pessimistic. Then both types were instructed to get a latte at a local coffee shop. Their instructions, of course, were part of a setup. Wiseman taped a crisp $5 bill on the sidewalk just outside the coffee shop, planted a “millionaire” at a table inside, and situated himself so he could surreptitiously monitor the scenario.

The subject who tested as an optimist spotted the cash and sat at the table with the millionaire. He struck up a conversation and before long they were exploring a mutual business venture.

The pessimist walked into the coffee shop without taking notice of the money. She sat next to the millionaire but kept to herself. After all, what possible good could come from talking to strangers?

Wiseman’s study is a good reminder that good fortune favors those who don’t wait for good fortune to inform their life experience. So, if you’re interested in financial success, smile more often, talk to strangers, and consider the possibility that a joyful outlook tips the scales in your favor. You’ll find that the cart actually follows the horse.(Credit for this great article goes to someone long forgotten. My apologies to the author, but thanks.)